Crime & Punishment: Log Flume-Based Discrimination

This week's Crime & Punishment features a man who is obsessed with log flume rides.

This week's Crime & Punishment features a man who is obsessed with log flume rides. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

Nick Keppler

A 52-year-old New Haven man, whose life's passion is riding the log-like flume rides in water parks, is suing Six Flags after the company banned him from its 18 locations for life. Jay Marc Harris, known as "Flumie" and "Flume Dog" to his friends (seriously), spends his summers touring water parks. At the Six Flags in San Antonio, he allegedly approached three moms, asking to "borrow" a child for a two-person ride. He seemed to dig his hole deeper when he specified that he would "prefer a young boy." Harris, a Hasidic Jew who wears a yarmulke-like swim cap at his beloved water parks, says his religion would preclude him from riding with a girl. The security guard who kicked him out apparently found reports of Harris hiding to stay overnight in the Six Flags in Chicago and chaining himself to a tree (to prevent his eviction) at the one in Atlanta. Six Flags banned him from all their parks. Harris is suing, claiming gender and religious discrimination. "It's a tragic story in my life," he told the San Antonio Express-News, adding, "[T]heir discriminatory policy of 'a girl whines, trash the guy' will scar me for life."

PCP Is a Helluva Drug: Police suspect a 30-year-old Bridgeport man got high on PCP before he zigzagged his car down a city street, colliding with several parked vehicles. After crashing into a porch, he exited the car and began taking off his clothes. Witnesses told News 12 that the man struggled with police, continually pulling down his pants after officers hoisted them up. The station also reports he "had to be restrained en route to the hospital because he kept trying to perform Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' routine inside the ambulance."

Sick, Sad World: Rommy Rodriguez of Bridgeport was arrested on charges of beating her puppy to death. Rodriguez's abuse of the poodle mix was apparently so prevalent a neighbor took notice of the dog's wailing. After the cries stopped, he was horrified to see freshly dug dirt in her backyard. He dug up the dog's body and took it to an animal shelter, where a necropsy showed it died of blunt-force trauma to the head. Regardless of the evidence, Rodriguez, 23, told a Connecticut Post reporter, "Obviously, it's not true," as she left a court hearing.

Giovanni Biasetti of Norwalk, who police say has a Nazi tattoo on his neck, proved himself a model of Aryan righteousness after he allegedly got drunk, badgered a family who had just left a funeral and ran from a dude who punched him in the face. Biasetti, 33, was apparently drinking at O'Neill's Pub and Restaurant when the mourning family entered. He yelled obscenities and then removed his shirt to go in for an attack, police told The Hour. After one of the men bloodied Biasetti's face, he reportedly fled the bar and hid behind a dumpster.

Attention old people of Watertown: Do not annoy Virginia Cole. She will mess you up. Cole, 60, was arrested twice in the span of five hours in two separate incidents of assault of an elderly victim, town police told the Republican-American newspaper. First, Cole reportedly got into a spat with a 91-year-old relative. Police say Cole beat the woman with her own walking cane, causing her to flee to a gas station. Later that day, Cole was arrested again, this time for allegedly suckerpunching another relative, an 82-year-old man, in the face.

A "heavily intoxicated" Mark Bass apparently wandered into the parking lot of New London Police Headquarters, where an officer arriving for her shift allegedly found him urinating on a squad car, reports WTNH. A posse of officers then went to the lot and reportedly found Bass, 29, laying on the pavement, half his body under a police vehicle. (Bass, who holds a valid pistol permit, was allegedly carrying a loaded semi-automatic handgun at the time.)

Residents of a back road in Torrington awoke to a toilet-papering that they described as "elaborate" and "incredible." The bathroom product was strung along trees, power lines and street signs and covered the ground, creating a glaze of white reminiscent of a light snowfall. Even the police officer dispatched to the scene had to admire it, telling the Register-Citizen newspaper the display of Charmin "was like nothing [he's] seen before."

Here's a reminder as to why you shouldn't do completely stupid things for absolutely no reason: A 20-year-old Quinnipiac student was walking through the common area of a dorm building when he was hit by a chair that had apparently been tossed from a fourth-floor balcony. He was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital for a minor head injury, reports the New Haven Register. (Police could not find the thrower.)

Deron Brooks of Bridgeport was alarmed at the cost of repairs for his car and that of his mother, so — using logic — he decided to punch the mechanic in the face, police told the Connecticut Post: Take that, crappily built American cars! No word on how much the repair bill was but it was probably less than Brooks' $5,000 bond.